The Death and Sale of Alexander Goland

In a mythical country somewhere north of Detroit, Mrs. Goland arrives in the office of the Minister of Social Services without enough money to bury her husband. To help her, a burial-by-proxy scheme is hatched. For a fee, plus tax, of course, the government decides to sell 24 ct. gold certificates to the common people who begin buying them on behalf of their dead loved ones, not buried with the pomp they deserved. The certificates are to be placed with Mr. Goland in his coffin wherein both will receive a lavish state funeral. Unfortunately Mr. Goland, who has been kept on ice, literally, in his ice cream truck, is misplaced when the truck is towed away for a parking violation. Chaos reigns when Mr. Goland, not dead at all, thaws, is reunited with his wife and, through twists imaginable only in absurdist comedies, becomes the Minister of Social Services, through no fault of his own.